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Proton is a big deal for the change. Think back 5 years ago and switching to Linux was much less approachable because you needed to be an enthusiast to get your games running. Nowadays, you just click download on the Linux Steam client and >90% of the time, it'll just work.
I have been on Linux for over 15 years and even I don't want to go back to the old days of manually installing Wine and having to create different prefixes to get different games to launch without sound. or some missing textures.
Hear, hear!
There is nothing wrong, and in fact there is something good, with FOSS being polished and user friendly out of the box.
Historically that has not been a priority, because FOSS has been by the computer nerds, for the computer nerds. But if that priority shifts to being a bit more “by the computer nerds, for the normies” then that is a good thing as long as the developers don’t prevent the power users from accessing any part of the system they want. Fortunately that completely against the point of the FOSS world.
I first learned Unix in the 90s, I use my Linux desktop more than my phone, I’m an engineer on embedded systems digging through C and C++ code all day, I have terminals open all day, and… I have Linux Mint Cinnamon installed on all my machines and love it. Change My Mind, lol.
not manually, yeah, but bottles and such are still really useful. it shows how much good GUI tools help with usability for everyone
Not just UI, but simplicity of operation. The closer to "it just works" a system/program is, the more palatable it is to adopt.
I ended up wading into the world of WINE prefixes when I tried to mod some older games. I got it working in the end, but it sure made me grateful for how easy I have it with Proton
100% this. I've been on Linux for 27 years now (ffs I'm getting old), and until proton, I just wrote off gaming as a hit or miss experience, usually not worth the trouble. Now I'll buy Windows only games without even checking compatibility in most cases. Unless it's a full price AAA game, I'll risk the off chance that it doesn't work.
Clair Obscur worked out of the box and it took a while for me to realize that I didn't even check before buying.
I think it's less Proton, more Vulkan/DXVK. Proton is just wrapping these amazing things. Before DXVK, games in Linux used to suck big time.
Honestly, 5 years ago Proton was already in pretty good shape. 2018 is when I switched to Linux, and already had very little trouble gaming.
Yes but nobody knew about it. SteamOs brought that to the surface.
Gaming on Mac was also more or less the same when it came to running windows games, had to use wine
And I'm sorry y'all I know wine is awesome but using it manually is a pain in the ass and I hated it and I consider myself more of an enthusiast
Crossover isn’t cheap, but it can save so much time compared to WINE that I think it does pay for itself.
I haven't used Mac in years, I wonder if Wine is now a much better experience as well compared to what it used to be.
It is. But in some cases there’ll be a game or something that has requirements that are hard to wrestle with. For me it was a video game that needed specific libraries to run (possibly directX or whatever is current these days). After hours of attempts I downloaded Crossover and it worked instantly.
Desktop applications like the Office suites typically ran well for me in WINE. although my experience with those is dated by now.
I’m speaking from a macOS perspective but I’ve used WINE on Linux too.
If we can get close to that kind of support for productivity software, I think Linux usage would explode. One of the problems with business adoption is that specialized software almost always skips Linux. The Affinity suite, for example. I’m hoping we see some snowballing now that Linux is growing so quickly, but getting Wine/Proton working with more non-game software would also be an enormous win.
now is a good time to switch. Im so glad im off windows and their bullshit. a lot of games just work, including many online games, which is super cool. often there's no difference between launching a game on Linux vs windows.